Inside Google

Smile! Aerial Images Being Used to Enforce Laws

Frank Eltman

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — On New York’s Long Island, it’s used to prevent drownings. In Greece, it’s a tool to help solve a financial crisis. Municipalities update property assessment rolls and other government data with it. Some in law enforcement use it to supplement reconnaissance of crime suspects. High-tech eyes in the sky — from satellite […]

Google’s net neutrality case fails to convince

Margot Williams

As protests against Google’s changing position on net neutrality mount online (here, here and here) and at the company’s Mountain View campus, it’s worth parsing the search giant’s official response.

Santa Monica Consumer Group Alleges Google-Verizon Internet Plan Could Hinder Universal Internet Access

Dennis Romero

A Santa Monica-based consumer watchdog group this week decried a proposal by Google and Verizon Communications that it says would put an end to net neutrality and create a system of pay-to-play haves and have-nots when it comes to internet access.

Google moves to profit from its “crown jewels” — your data

John M. Simpson

A Wall Street Journal article this week details how Google is increasingly moving to maximize profits from the vast amount of personal data it has amassed in its global network of servers at the expense of consumers’ privacy. Google chairman Eric Schmidt once claimed Google put its money “where our principles are.” The Journal’s revealing article showing how profits triumph over privacy demonstrates the stark reality: Google puts its principles where the money is.

Google Proposes Separate Rules for Wireless Web

Amy Thomson

Verizon Communications Inc. and Google Inc. urged U.S. regulators to leave wireless Internet services outside most policies that are designed to prevent carriers from making some websites perform better than others. Consumer Watchdog, a consumer group based in Santa Monica, said the proposal “completely undermines the future of the Internet” because the wireless use of the Web is gaining in popularity.

Google-Verizon call for Congressional ban on Net Neutrality for mobile devices

Byron Acohido

John Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog, concurs. He says the Google-Verizon proposal “pays lip service” to Net Neutrality and contains two fundamental flaws.

Anger Greets Google-Verizon Plan for Routing Web Traffic

Byron Acohido

“Ultimately, consumers would pay the costs for the premium delivery, or worse, would never see the content of smaller companies,” says John Simpson, director of advocacy group Consumer Watchdog. “Google claims it won’t use premium channels for delivery, but not long ago they professed to defend true net neutrality.”

There’s no privacy in third world America

Jamie Court

A big New York foundation once told me years ago that privacy is the last thing people in the developing world have to worry about. It was a nice way of saying no to funding for my consumer group’s privacy project, but the line rang out to me again this week as new reporting at the Wall Street Journal brings into focus the great privacy betrayals of America’s giant tech companies and Third World America, Arianna Huffington’s new book, makes its debut.

Google-Verizon blueprint: creeping control of Internet by corporate giants

Margot Williams

The Google-Verizon statement on regulating the Internet isn’t business deal, the two companies say. Its a “legislative framework proposal” and a “a path to the open internet.” Web watchers aren’t buying it. It’s an alliance of two companies looking to lock in market advantages with political action.

Sign Our Petition: Defend a free and open Internet

Evan Thomas King

Two giant corporations – Google and Verizon — have just announced a joint plan that would kill the open Internet as we know it. They want to allow Internet Service Providers to charge a premium do deliver some data services faster than other content. They would place no restraint on data discrimination on the wireless Internet.

We can’t let two companies decide the rules for the Internet. The Federal Communications Commission must act to ensure that “Net Neutrality” is guaranteed for both the wireline and wireless Internet. Please sign our petition.